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Developing Diamante

Diamante Cabo San Lucas Clubhouse

By Coleman Bentley

At Diamante Cabo San Lucas, the idea that links golf has to be wind carved, rain soaked and Titleist devouring is an antiquated one.

Don’t believe me? Sacrilege, you say? Well, just Google it. The whole process takes thirty seconds and what you get, as a result of that effort, is a glimpse of the single most exciting development on the Baja peninsula. This is how I first came across Diamante’s Dunes Course—a Davis Love III-designed links jewel set down in, of all places, Cabo—while working on Mexico golf piece that placed an emphasis on beauty above all else. It didn’t take long to realize, however, that the Dunes Course’s allure was a lot more than, well, fairway deep; a fact Diamante Cabo San Lucas’s CEO Ken Jowdy reinforced when he stopped by Elite Traveler’s New York City office earlier this month.

The recently completed 100,000-square-foot clubhouse, boasting 20 private residences on it’s top floor, understandably began our discussion of the private residence playland, where Tiger Woods, a golfer whose name will one day sit alongside Hogan, Palmer and Nicklaus’s, has chose to design one of his very first courses. That course, El Cardonal, has garnered a lot of media attention in the international golf community, as is the case with anything Woods puts his stamp on, but Diamante hasn’t let that project distract them from the improvement of their current facilities, with the Dunes Course currently undergoing a redesign that will place the 12th and 13th holes fully on the course’s beach side.

Not everything at Diamante is about the golf, however. “Golf has garnered us a lot attention” Jowdy said toward the end of our visit, “and we have been able to feed off that to do a lot of other things.” Other things which just so happen to include a new 47-unit residence (set to break ground this spring), a fitness center/health club, a full spa (open August 1st) and a host of 19th hole amenities like the clubhouse’s cigar lounge. The highlight of the growth, however, has to be a stunning 10-acre lagoon designed by Crystal Lagoons, the Chilean specialists responsible for the world’s largest pool, a nearly 20-acre design in Algarrobo, Chile. Jowdy and Diamante have gone all-in on the project, heating the edges (a man-made lagoon first) and, to combat the lack of swimmable beaches in the Cabo area, erecting luxury residences around them.

Though no claims have been made, Diamante Cabo San Lucas is well on their way to becoming the premier private membership club on the Baja peninsula, if not all of Mexico, offering packages—from one-week stays to full five-bedroom villa ownership— fit for every luxury traveler.